I am a fan of the New Orleans Saints. But I am a realist too. As a Saint fan, I'm disappointed in their 2 game loosing streak. As a Saint fan, I am embarrased by my home teams performance today. As a Saint fan I still want them to win, win in the playoffs and make it to a Super Bowl.
As a realist I now understand that all that fan stuff I just wrote ain't going to happen. As a realist, let's analyze facts and get rid of feelings. Heck, feelings are part of what has taken this team down. The New Orleans Saints that started 5-0 were one of the best NFL teams I ever witnessed in watching pro football with a critical eye in over 40 years. With the exception of the first Tampa game and the New England Monday night game, that team has been missing in action. For many weeks now, we can point to mediocre victories against St. Louis and Washington; horrible teams and barely surviving the last Atlanta team beset by injuries of epic proportions.
Yet thru it all; all we cared about was the pursuit of 16-0. What would the next funny jingle be on TV, what national talk show would Drew be on, how much louder can we chant who dat and how much more euphoric could we be as a city. All of this without accomplishing anything, yet.
All of this clouded the fact that injuries were mounting and superior execution was helping us survive. Now the execution is gone. We have no running game. Mike Bell was outstanding in September; where is he now. Pierre Thomas has been effective but less and less every week. Reggie Bush; total waste of millions. Jeremy Shockey; after two years he must be picking splinters out of his butt because I figure he's missed more games than he's started. And now we have receivers struggling to execute crisp routes and Drew is not nearly as effective. Yes, he completed something like 32 of 37 passes; the vast majority of them for 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 yards.
Defense has been ravaged by injuries yes but has played like a paper tiger of late. No more tackling, no execution, confusion and quite frankly getting pushed around like girls. Greg Williams defense; has hardly showed up since week 6. He should give that money back to Sean Payton; who needs to give it to some of these poor suffering fans.
Here is the biggest real fact everyone needs to digest; of all teams going to the playoffs; no one is playing poorer than the New Orleans Saints. Most of the teams are ascending; we, by far are in free-fall. And hey, digest this; the Saints have been pushed around and physically man-handled at HOME. 2 losses at HOME. Dome field advantage my rear-end.
As a Saints fan, I am saddended to say this but as a football realist it is true; this is the worst 13-2 football team in NFL history. I will say it again because it's so obvious it's not even funny; in August we would be giddy about 13-2 or even 13-3. But it is the way it has played out.
We need some honest assessment about what is happening here. For the most part, you can't get it from that radio station that plays the game. I digress here as I remind locals that all you get is old worn out garbage from old worn out Bobby Hebert. WWL sends reporters into the locker-room to ask softball cream puff questions. The TP might have a reporter or two who will be critical but don't count on it. I hope Ed Daniels will be honest; he usually is and of course we can count on Jim Henderson to do a sports commentary to show off his masterful command of 6 syllable words that the average schmuk that still watches 4 (and there are less and less of them) will never understand.
The Saints will limp into Carolina next week and play a Panther team that has looked unbeatable the last two weeks. And depending on Minnesota, may or may not have the home field advantage that they cared little about achieving today. But as I said earlier; might be a moot point. Who are they going to beat in the playoffs playing like this and what home field advantage have you seen lately?
I've been a Saint fan through 1 win seasons, decades of losing seasons, heart breaking defeats, 55 point blow outs but I never thought I'd see the day that I would be witnessing a 13-2 Saint team and feeling so down, so let down by the New Orleans Saints. Only a turn around of epic proportion that results in a trip to the Super Bowl will wipe away my disappointmet. Based on what I'm watching; I'll have to hope for a miracle!
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